Adventures in Canon Warping
by ImaRocketDog
Summary: When magic and the Force places squabbling twins Mark and Steph in the roles of Luke and Leia in ANH, can they find the strength to save each other and the Rebel Alliance? DISCONTINUED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE; SEE CHAPTER 7.
1. October, 2006

**A/N- 8/17/10: **Well, I've been pretty busy taking down, fixing, re-numbering, re-naming, and re-posting chapters today, so I'm a little tired and won't say much about this. Basically, I took the first 2 chapters and combined them to get the plot moving faster. Don't worry, I'll update with a real new chapter soon, thanks to my inspiration from **BluJeanBaby526**, whose own Star Wars story, _**Life as a Smuggler's Sister**_, is being brought back to life with a little help from my beta-ing talents. Go read it, it's a fun story (and I suggest you read it ASAP, because I may or may not make a sneaky reference to it in a later chapter and I want you guys to be ready when I quiz you on whether or not you picked up on it, ok?).

* * *

**Chapter One: ****October, 2006**

_**Stephanie**_

Fate is a funny thing. Sometimes, when Fate throws you a curveball, everything can seem to fall to pieces around you, your life shattered, meaning and reason lost among the scattered fragments. At least, that was how it was for me after my Father died. And as I began my slow and arduous quest to pick up the pieces of my broken life, I guess I sort of lost myself along the way.

But I wasn't the only one who was lost. This is, after all, not a story of a lonely, angsty teenage girl. This _is_, however, a story of a brother and a sister- twins, in fact- distanced by the pain that they shared. A story of a boy and a girl who were lost and confused and alone, who found their way back to each other and found their way back home. A story of loss, learning, adventure, hurt, humor, and family. You might call it the Story of _Star Wars, _but that would only be the truth from a certain point of view. To us it is simply a small part- the beginning- of the Story of Stephanie and Mark Legio. Our story.

Believe me, readers, this is not an easy story to tell, though it is one that I feel I will keep in my heart for the rest of my life. My brother and I never imagined telling this to anyone, though the months that have transpired between now and the events of last December have convinced me otherwise. At first, Mark thought that we could simply begin our amazing tale at that point, but would that really have done our story justice? No. _This_ is the true beginning.

But to be honest, starting here makes telling the whole thing easier. Sometimes, when life seems to be just too much for me, I close my eyes and think back to that fateful Halloween night back in 2006, when we were 17 and all that was holding our shattered lives together were school, soccer, and Star Wars.

I mentioned before that this was, from a certain point of view, the story of _Star Wars._ I wasn't joking about that. This is no delusional fangirl fantasy run amuck. (I used to sometimes wish that it had been, though. Silly as I was, I thought that it would've made great fanfic material). For you to believe the story that is about to unfold, you must forget everything you know about that galaxy far, far, away. You must unlearn what you have learned...

There are those who like think that they can handle anything their destiny can dish out. I used to be one of those people, too. But when Fate mixes with magic- and yes, maybe some of the Force- that's when things really start to get crazy. And when that happened, Fate proved me wrong.

Dead wrong.

* * *

I looked in the mirror, glanced at the photo lying on the dresser, then back in the mirror, making sure I had perfected the hairstyle. Finally I sighed and smiled awkwardly at my reflection, patting the massive "cinnamon rolls" on either side of my head. How my uncle had persuaded my brother and I to do this may still have been a mystery to my mother, but it was beginning to make sense to me. I would just have to learn to accept that this was simply another one of those things that she couldn't fully understand. At least, not after... the accident.

For as long as I could remember, the Legio family had carried what Mark and I had dubbed "the Star Wars Curse". It wasn't necessarily a bad thing; it was just that there was something about us that was so sci-fi. Maybe it was the whole "twin thing" with me and my brother, which had inevitably led Mom and Dad to think it would be a cool idea to buy us cute little Luke and Leia costumes when we were babies, then take our pictures in them and use them as Halloween cards (my mother is the only person I know who actually sends Halloween cards).

Or maybe it was the fact that our cool Uncle Jim who lived with us- or rather, we lived with him, since he actually owned the house- collected lightsabers, had repeatedly collaborated with Mark, myself, and our friends on our fan film-making exploits, and was the owner of a deluxe (and very expensive) Darth Vader costume that he had proudly worn to many a convention in the past, as well as every Halloween I could possibly remember. Not that any (well, most) family members objected to his strong spirit of fandom; Mark and I had always been very close to him (occasionally more attached to him that our own parents, I'm ashamed to admit), and as kids had dubbed him "Uncle Vader". The nickname stuck.

...Nah, it was definitely the twin thing. If it wasn't, then why else would I be trying to convince myself that "This was all Uncle Vader's idea" as I adjusted the hood of my white dress while Mark let out a string of curses as he futilely searched for his prop lightsaber?

"Mark! Language!" Mom shouted from the bathroom.

"Ah, shit!" I had just stabbed myself in the eye with mascara; which wasn't surprising, considering how much noise my brother was making in his room.

"Steph, Language!"

"Sorry," I mumbled, "but I can't help it that Luke Skywalker over there is busy tearing his room apart, why can't you tell him to shut his door or something?"

Mark got up and stood in the doorway of his room, looking pissed. "Well, I'm hardly Luke Skywalker without my _**lightsaber, **_now am I?" he retorted, "I bet you hid it on purpose..."

"What the hell are you blaming me for?" I shouted, slamming my makeup drawer shut with more force than I had intended to. An outside observer, like Mom, might have remarked that there had been tension between us since I had chewed him out over something at breakfast, but I knew that our resentment towards each other went a few months further back. Ever since a few days after the funeral, each word he said to me- which were increasingly fewer and fewer- I perceived to be a new way to antagonize me, each biting remark inviting aggression on my part. He always seemed to be waiting for me to attack.

_Why, God, WHY is he doing this to me now? _Was all I could think as I stood there glaring at him.

"Oh, like you don't know; you steal my stuff all the time, or at least you used to! Seemed to find it pretty damn amusing..."

"Um, _language?"_ Mom cut in.

" Oh, come on!" I said, ignoring her, "If we're getting dressed up as Luke and Leia for tonight, then _please_ do explain to me why I would find that funny now?"

"Because that's exactly the kind of thing you do, Steph! Well, even if you didn't steal it, I guess that it's for the best if I go as somebody completely different anyway, seeing as how Luke is still like your little Lover boy and all..."

I could feel my face burning ; my cheeks felt hot enough to melt my thick coating of makeup off. Call me a crazed fangirl, a hopeless Luke-Lover, but it was no secret that I had had a crush on Luke Skywalker since I was old enough to like boys, a fact that my brother had always resented and jumped at the chance to tease me about. But in the heat of the argument, this retort seemed to be not only totally irrelevant, but way out of line. I took it as a slap to the face.

"Really Mark, really? Do have to go and make such a HUGE DEAL out of one little thing!"

" Oh, so **I'M **the one making a big deal? Well, at least I don't spend two hours bitching and whining about your damn hair, bunhead..."

" Watch your damn language!" Mom shouted. _Great_, I thought,_ now Mom's pissed off_. But when she stepped out of the bathroom, green witch makeup only half done, her eyes were red; she looked really upset. "God, don't you two ever stop fighting? For Christ's sake, you're seventeen now, this 'sibling rivalry' crap you always give me has _got_ to end! This is the last thing I need... if your father..."

Mark and I looked down, ashamed, and stunned, too, that she'd mentioned Dad. She looked just as stunned as we were; nobody had talked about... _it _in over a month. I had to say something.

"Mom, I..."

"Just finish getting ready. I have a headache," she hurried past me towards her bedroom, but not in time to keep me from seeing her makeup streaked with tears. I almost wanted to cry myself, but at the same time I fumed on the inside at Mark, blaming him for what happened. All I did was tell him to be quiet, and he had to go and be a total jackass about it. I just couldn't bring myself to yell at him about it though, not anymore. Just a few words had slipped out by accident, but it had been enough to bring our fight to an abrupt end.

_Slam!_ The sound of my mother's door brought me out of my grim reverie, and I looked up to see my uncle rounding the corner and coming towards us. He had his full costume on, and carried his Vader helmet under one arm. He smiled when he saw us, running his free hand through his black hair.

"Aww, don't you two just look so _authentic_!" he said. I sighed, and his smile fell as he noticed our somber expressions. "Is everything ok? Where's your mother?"

"We, we, got in an argument and kind of upset her," mumbled my brother from his doorway, "She yelled at us and said something like "if your father was here,' and then she started crying and ran to her room. I'm sorry."

'_I'm sorry'? _After what had just happened and all the bastard could come up with was 'I'm sorry'? But deep inside, I knew that even that was more than I could muster, so ashamed was I at my own actions and hurt by his rude remarks. I looked down again in shame, not wanting to see the disappointment in Uncle Vader's face, and the old grief at the mention of his own brother that I knew would be there, too. He sighed and cleared his throat.

"Well, I'll go talk to your mother. The party starts in half an hour, so whenever you're ready, I'll meet you guys in the car. Your Aunt Suzy'll kill me if we get there late again this year," he joked weakly, then left us and went to knock softly on Mom's door.

"I never even found my lightsaber," I heard Mark grumble. My anger boiled to the surface. Shoving past him, I marched into his room, looked around, and picked up his saber hilt from where it had been lying on his dresser the whole time. Without a word, I whacked him hard on the arm with it, dropped it in his hands, and walked away, not even looking back as he gasped in pain.

* * *

_**Mark**_

The car ride to Aunt Susan's Halloween party was a silent one. From where I was in the backseat, Uncle Vader's expression as he drove was unreadable, but I could tell that his jaw was clenched, his focus on the road unwavering. Mom was so quiet that she could've been asleep. Beside me, but with as much space between us as possible, my sister sat with her chin resting on the Vader helmet on her lap. I stared out the window, ignoring her pointedly. So what if I was acting childish? _She _was no better. The tension it the air was almost palpable.

Not that it usually wasn't at least awkward; none of us ever really wanted to go to these parties, anyway, because Aunt Suzy's family was the most obnoxious family on the face of the Earth- we only ever tolerated them because of Mom's insistence that we go and because Aunt Suzy was a great cook. Usually, though, Dad was the one driving, not Uncle Vader, and my arm wasn't severely bruised enough to cause me to wonder if I had internal bleeding.

But that had been before the accident. Back then, going to these parties had almost been fun. Back then, Steph, my twin sister, hadn't been as much of a bitch (but she was still a bitch, though, just not at much; she was happier then). But everything was different now; even the car ride to the party was quieter. We didn't even have the same car, for obvious reasons, but it wasn't until now that I realized how much I missed the strange noises our old car used to make...

* * *

The day it happened all seems like a blur in my mind now; I think I tried to block it from my memory forever, but the moment when you find out that your father is dead... well, that's not something easily forgotten.

What I do remember is finally starting to eat dinner at almost 7:00 on that unnaturally cold February night, later than usual, even considering how busy our lives were. We had spent more than an hour waiting for Dad to get home from work, when Mom finally decided to start without him, having "remembered" that he had said he would be late for some reason. But we hadn't even started eating yet when the knock on the door came...

I think time must have slowed down in the moment it took my mother to get up and walk down the hall to the front door. Slowed down just enough to give me time to realize that something was horribly wrong even before her strangled cry had be uttered.

Black ice, we were told at the hospital. Dangerous enough to have sandwiched Dad's car between a tree and an 18-wheeler. Enough to cause the numerous fractures in his spine and skull. The doctor said that he had felt nothing, but inside, I screamed, _How do you know that? Were you in the car with him? No! How do you know how it felt for him to die? How? __**HOW?**_

* * *

"Mary! Hi! Good to see ya, sis!" Aunt Susan promptly attacked my mother with a bone-crushing hug as soon as she answered to door. Insufferable cow. I hoped the semi-darkness was enough to hide my scowl. Oh, sure, she'd been sad enough at the funeral, but my mother's sister could never stand to be anything but obnoxiously cheerful for more than five seconds of her perfect life.

She had a hard time getting through said door, considering the height of her massive crown or the width of her hideously sequined Pepto-Bismol colored dress. She must have been Glinda the Good Witch from "The Wizard of Oz", which I knew for a fact since she wore this costume every other Halloween (the other costume being a vampire). A horrible realization struck me: if my Mom was dressed as a witch and had green makeup, and her sister was wearing that _thing_, then had this been part of some kind of _plan?_ I sure as hell hoped not; if anyone else inside was dressed as the Tin Man, I would just get in the car and drive home as fast as I could. Seriously.

Thankfully, Aunt Suzy had no idea what I was thinking.

"Aww, just look how grown up you two are getting!" she exclaimed as she always did every time she saw Stephanie and me.

"Hi Aunt Suzy," we said in unenthusiastic unison.

"Hmm, looks like the whole Skywalker clan is here tonight, eh Jim?"

Uncle Vader grunted in response; he never liked her much, a fact which our Aunt seemed completely oblivious too. "Yeah, I guess," said our uncle. Aunt Suzy giggled nasally.

Inside, my sister and I were promptly abandoned by our mother and uncle (I guess they had gone to see Grandpa Henry), and were confronted with a Halloween horror: our cousins Katie, Ashley, and Eric.

"Hi, Katie," said Steph. The spoiled eight-year-old rolled her eyes. Of all the bratty little cousins in the world, our Aunt Susan and Uncle Ken's kid was the brattiest and the littlest. Her weird pink costume looked like pajamas, but the shiny boots, head bandana, and plastic sword told me that she was either a ninja, a lazy Power Ranger, or had very little imagination.

"What are you supposed to be?" she asked. Steph looked shocked, and I laughed.

"I'm Princess Leia, from 'Star Wars', " she answered, "Jerkface over here is Luke Skywalker." I guess she was still pissed at me; my bruised arm ached, and I reached over and flicked her on the back of the neck. I would've done more, but Eric and Ashley started giggling a little too loudly, and Steph fixed me with a death glare. I didn't want any unnecessary attention from parents.

"Hmph," said Katie, "I hate Star Wars. My Dad says that your Uncle Jimmy of all people should get his head out of the clouds and stop trying to turn you guys into younger versions of him. My Dad thinks that Physics professors shouldn't be running around Star Wars conventions with a bunch of crazies like he does, and he thinks that by filling your heads with garbage with stuff like that, all he's doing is pretending to be your dad and trying to raise you. He told me your parents always spoiled you, letting your uncle fill your head with garbage and playing with lightsabers with you like a little kid. That's why he my Dad doesn't like your Uncle Jim very much, and that's why he never liked your dad, either."

My blood began to boil as she spoke. How could even a little bratty kid like her say something so terrible? It wasn't what she said about Uncle Ken that bothered me- he had always been a bigoted, ultra-conservative workaholic, but I had never known him to be _this_ crazy- it was the last thing that she said about him that made me so angry. Steph and I looked at each other in shock and hurt. At that moment, a shared desire to make Katie and her Dad pay for what they had said united us again. I was about to open my mouth and chew out our cousin when little Eric tugged on my sleeve.

"Ugh. What, Eric?"

The four-year-old beamed up at me with big, pleading eyes. "Pway hide-and-seek wit us!" he demanded, clapping his hands together.

Stephanie sighed, no doubt remembering last year when the rotten little kids had begged us to go hide, then had trapped her in a closet, only to be chewed out in front of everyone later by my Mom for making too much noise. "Maybe later. Isn't it almost time for you three to go trick-or-treating?"

Eric stamped his foot. "No! No! Wanna pway now!"

"Now! Now!" his sister Ashley chimed in.

Steph looked at me, eyebrows raised. I sighed. Fine, if one of us was going to end up locked up somewhere this time, it better not be that closet.

"Oh, alright," she told them. Katie walked away in a huff, but Eric and Ashley cheered and promptly latched onto our costumes and dragged us up the stairs.

"Stephie can count!" Eric exclaimed.

"Yeah, let's start in the attic!" His sister pushed past us and hurried to open the attic door.

The attic? Great, I could just picture it now: an old, musty, tiny room with the kind of door that locked on both sides. Perfect for aggravating older cousins. As we went inside, though, I couldn't help but smirk; at least _I_ didn't have to stay here and count. Stephanie look simply infuriated.

Two things I didn't count on, though: 1) those little brats were faster than I expected; and 2) my sister wasn't about to let them have their way. Just as I was about to run from the room after my cousins, Steph sprung from her "counting place" and locked the door on Eric and Ashley. She was too late, though. Before either of them could start whining, there was a _click_ as a lock on the other side of the doorknob engaged, and the malicious giggling of two little kids running down the steps.

"Hey! Come back here you little...!" I shouted, but gave up quickly.

"Well, you could at least turn the light on," Steph said drily. Stumbling in the dark, I reached up and turned on the flickering light bulb above. To my surprise, the light revealed a room full of boxes and overflowing trunks.

"I wonder what that is," said Steph as she opened the nearest trunk. She gasped, then laughed, "Hey, check this shit out!" I looked over to see her holding a Princess Leia dress to herself, old and off-white with age, but otherwise identical to the one she was already wearing. Ignoring the smell of mothballs, I looked in the trunk to find and amazing, albeit wrinkled, array of "Star Wars" costumes.

"Dude, this stuff has to be at least twenty years old!" I found a Luke costume and compared it to my own in the mirror standing in the middle of the floor.

"Yeah, whoever thought Aunt Suzy and Uncle Ken were closet Star Wars fans."

There was another trunk next to the one we had opened, tightly shut and obviously very old. There was something strange about it... it looked almost familiar in a way, and something, I don't know what, compelled me to open it. I hesitated.

"I wonder what's in that one..." my sister's voice trailed off mysteriously, and I saw her go over to open the trunk. The lid wouldn't budge. "It's stuck." She tired harder to pry it open.

"I don't know if we should open it, Steph..."

Suddenly, her fingers seemed to slip and the lid burst open. Startled, she stumbled and fell backwards on top of me. Annoyed, I shoved her off of me and she shoved me back, but before either of us could do any more, things started to happen.

The light bulb flickered, dimmed. The musty air suddenly seemed strange, hot and arid, and breezy, too. The curtains of the lone window billowed a bit, then harder.

"Hey, could you close the window?" I asked my sister. She looked at me strangely, a strange excitement in her green eyes.

"But Mark, the window isn't open..."

We got up off the floor, which was hard to do in the now gale-force wind, and found ourselves brushing dust from our clothes... only dust wasn't this gritty... but it couldn't possibly be sand...

The light went out. Half-blind, I could barely see my sister as she tripped backwards over something on the floor, about to crash into the mirror! I rushed forward, not because I thought I could catch her, but because some powerful force, stronger than gravity, was pulling me towards the mirror, too.

"Steph!" I cried, but it was too late. In the split-second it took for my sister to fall, I realized that the mirror had ceased to be solid, and she was literally falling into it, me along with her. Desperately I tried to grab her wrist, or anything else that might stop us from falling, but she fell from my grasp with a terrified shriek, flying away into a vast expanse of white fog.

Screaming, I fell for what seemed like an eternity, until I seemed to hit a wall of blinding white, hot air, caught up in swirling winds and flying dust that stung my face. At last I think I landed, my head hitting something that must of been hard and painful, but before I could feel any pain, everything started to go black.

The last thing I remember before passing out completely was the feeling of dry sand between my fingers...


	2. Princess Stephanie Organa?

**A/N: **Hey readers! Just me here to clear up a few points. I probably should have mentioned before, but this story is told from Mark and Steph's alternating POV's. I'll try for the most part to keep it with one chapter per twin, but in later chapters I will probably switch POV several times per chapter to keep the action moving faster. Please R&R! Thanx!

* * *

**Chapter Two****: Princess Stephanie Organa?**

_**Stephanie**_

I keep my eyes tightly shut, too afraid of what I might find I opened them. What had just happened? My panicked, confused mind was groggy, as if I had just woken up from a long sleep, and my memory only came to me in flashes of terror: swirling winds, my own desperate cry as my brother's hand slipped from my own and was consumed by fog, and the feeling of falling- how far I didn't know- as I felt a shock of sharp pain in my back just before everything went black...

Was that it? Had I merely blacked out? If so, perhaps I had been unconscious and dreamt the whole thing up; after all, it _had_ seemed too bizarre to be a freak tornado, which is what I had initially suspected. Gradually, my mind cleared and I began to come around, groaning in pain when I realized my head was throbbing. I usually wasn't one to get terrible migraines, so my headache had to have been caused by some blow to the head, which would've also explained blacking out. I wracked my brains, but couldn't manage to explain exactly how I had hit my head.

I sighed and stretched my aching limbs, exploring my surroundings blindly as I struggled to sit up. Cautiously, I opened my eyes, but closed them again a second later against the blinding brightness. I must have been out for quite some time; I was obviously no longer in the dark, musty attic with Mark, so someone must have cared enough to move me, though I had no idea where in Aunt Suzy's house I might be. Whatever I was sitting on felt like cold, hard metal, maybe a kitchen countertop, so I could only guess that whoever had moved my had been my brother, who was the only person in my family that I could think of who might not have cared enough to make sure that his poor, unconscious sister was comfortable. Whatever. I would be pissed at him later.

What really was beginning to confuse me, though, was the fact that I couldn't hear anyone around me asking me how I was. I felt hurt. Why had everyone abandoned me? In my somewhat delirious state, it almost made sense: my father had been the first to abandon me, so why not the rest of my family now, including my own twin? Confused by my sudden anger, I blinked away the tears in my eyes, and received the shock of my life when my vision cleared.

Wherever I was, it was definitely not Aunt Suzy's house, but it was strangely familiar all the same. The room was a tiny, perfect square, with a solid, steel door, no windows, and dull, dark, metallic walls. The bench on which I was sitting appeared to be built right into the walls and made out of the same dull metal. Besides this, there was no other furniture in the tiny space. Despite the dark color of the room, it was brightly lit by blinding white lights in the low ceiling above a framework of metal grating. In reality, it didn't seem like a true room at all; in fact, the closest thing I could compare the space to was a prison cell...

A prison cell! I suddenly realized why the tiny room had felt so familiar; because it had reminded me of Princess Leia's cell on the Death Star. I gasped at the implications of my realization, so startled by it that I leaned back too far and hit my head against the back wall, making it throb even harder.

_No, it can't be..._ I thought, my heart pounding wildly. Looking down, I saw that I was still wearing my white Leia dress, and felt that my ridiculous hairstyle was intact. I could have almost laughed at the irony of the situation- _Leia trapped in Leia's cell-_ but I began to panic again as my weak explanations and assumptions fell apart at the seams.

Logic was telling me that something traumatic must have happened to make me imagine that I was in the setting of a _Star Wars_ movie, but something else- what It was, I didn't know at the time- was telling me that what I felt was _real._ And I do mean that I _felt_ it; it was more than just seeing the prison cell with my eyes or feeling the cold metal with my hands, it was an actual feeling of living something that was actually happening, like a feeling of absolute conviction in not just my heart and soul but maybe even my physical body, but that was something my brain couldn't yet understand or know to be true, even though it was true. I don't know how else to explain it, but somehow I felt _different_, like I was finally seeing and understanding not only who I was clearly for the first time, but also the world, despite being separated from it by cold metal walls. And I knew- even without thinking about it- through this seemingly new sense of feeling that I truly was in a different world now, because it was beginning to feel more real to me than the far-away attic in Aunt Suzy's house, or any other place I had ever been. Maybe I really was in the Death Star, I didn't know, but what I did know was that this strange new feeling of absolute certainty had come over me so fast that it left me feeling scared, excited, and more confused than ever.

I sat there, trembling, as I tried to take in all that I had just come to know. Inside, questions tormented me: What made me so certain that I had magically ended up in Star Wars? Why was I here? Where was my brother Mark? _And why did I get the feeling that I wasn't alone?_

My own thoughts made me jump. The last question had startled me because I had asked it of myself even before I had a chance to feel paranoid, or know why I did feel that way. But sure enough, just as I had begun to ad another question to my mental list, the door retracted into the ceiling to reveal two figures that were a new shock all by themselves. I didn't know why I was surprised at their appearance after all I experienced in the past few minutes, but I suppose the sight of a real-live Stormtrooper carrying a blaster rifle would be enough to catch anyone off-guard. His companion wore the dark uniform that I think most Imperial technicians (or whatever their called) wear. At any rate, he looked like he was probably a non-militant Death Star Official/employee, and carried a tray of food. He sneered and set the tray at my feet with a contemptuous smirk.

"Eat up, princess," he said leering at me, making me shudder, "Lord Vader wants you to have your strength for your... little interview later."

I shrank back against the wall as he cast a quick look up and down my body, then steeled my nerves and gave him the most piercing glare I could manage. He smirked again, and then left the cell with the trooper in tow, the door coming down again with a bang.

I closed my eyes tight, rubbing my throbbing temples and trying to make sense of it all. Princess? Lord Vader? _Little Interview? _I was aware that I was ravenously hungry, but the food tray was the last thing on my mind. I knew all to well what the man in the black uniform had meant by the "little interview" with Vader, and the very though of what awaited me made me sick enough to vomit. No, there was no doubt in my mind now that I was in fact a prisoner on _the_ Death Star, but there were even more worrying questions on my mind now.

Had I become Princess Leia?

Was Mark alright?


	3. Mark and the Crazy Old Hermit

**Chapter Three: ****Mark and the Crazy Old Hermit**

_**Mark**_

"... Oh, don't worry, he'll be alright."

Someone was talking, very close by, but the voice was certainly not my sister's. I must have been kind of out of it; I was dimly aware that my head was hurting, and that someone was talking- was it about me?- with a vaguely British-sounding accent to someone else, and that for some reason I was _really_ sweaty...

Wait. The voice almost sounded familiar, but I was confused, and that was impossible. Who the hell did I know with a British accent?

All of a sudden, bits of memory flashed through my mind; the attic, the wind, the mirror, Stephanie...

The mirror? Stephanie! Where was she? Where was I? My eyes promptly jerked open and were immediately assaulted by blinding sunlight. I squinted and bolted upright, groaning as the pain in my head flared up angrily, making me dizzy. The voice spoke again, sounding very serious, but also with a sort of bemused chuckle.

"Rest easy, son. You've had a busy day," it said, as I felt a hand grasp my shoulder to help me sit up. I think the words must have made my heart skip a beat. Confused, I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the sudden brightness. A cheerful-sounding series of beeps sounded nearby.

Suddenly I gasped. _I knew that voice!_

Blinking again, I turned to look up into the face of whoever had helped me. My jaw dropped. He smiled at me kindly, ignoring my obvious, dumbfounded gaping. Somehow I found my voice, but looking back now, I almost wish I hadn't.

"A-Alec... _Guiness..._?"

...and then I passed out again.

I guess I had been out for awhile that time, because when I woke up- again- I was laying on something soft, like a bed or a couch, and there was a cool, wet cloth over my eyes and forehead. My head still hurt, but it was only a dull ache now; whoever had put the cool compress on my head had obviously known that I would need it.

_What nice people,_ I thought stupidly (I was still more than a little delirious, mind you, after having passed out twice in a short span of time, one of which had probably been caused by a massive blow to the head). _It's so quiet here, I wonder if I'm in the hospital?_

Not being very smart or particularly worried about much at the time, I decided to just lay there for awhile, the bed-like padded surface being much more comfortable than the little I remembered of the rocky, sandy surface I had first woken up on. So, I lay there contentedly, feeling my headache slowly ebb away, and thinking about what an amusing dream I had, or maybe was still having.

_You wanna hear about the crazy dream I had last night?_ I imagined telling Uncle Vader the next morning. He always liked to share his dreams with everyone, and since my own dreams were hardly ever interesting, I never had the chance to one-up him until now. _It was really weird; we were at Aunt Susan's party, and Steph and I ended up in the attic or something, and there was a bunch of old Star Wars costumes up there and stuff, and some old mirror... but then it started to get _really_ windy, and I got sucked into a magic vortex or something, and the next thing I knew I was in the desert or something with Alec Guiness! Ha! I think I might have landed on Tatooine or something crazy like that, and Alec Guiness was Obi-Wan and he probably thought I was Luke Skywalker! _Boy, would he get a kick out of that!

But as I was imagining everything I would say about my "dream", I began to realize that I was no longer as groggy and blissfully unaware of my situation as I had been a minute or so ago. Whatever I was laying on was more lumpy than comfortable now, and although my headache felt like it was gone, I felt worse than before. As my head had cleared, I began to feel less and less excited about my "dream"; by this time I was feeling more than merely put-out, and somehow even a bit nervous. Questions prodded my mind. Where was I? Why had I passed out? And why did I imagine seeing the Obi-Wan incarnation of Alec Guiness, and actor that I knew was dead? Just as I was beginning to worry, an answer seemed to come from the deepest, wisest part of by brain, though not one to any of my questions.

_"You're not alone here."_

_What? _The thought had occurred so quickly and unexpectedly that it almost seemed more like a reflex than a conscious thought. And it didn't go away, either, which was more surprising; it lingered, like the dull, lasting pain after Steph had originally whacked me on the arm with the prop lightsaber- even now I could feel the "ghost pain" from that hit. But this wasn't pain, though, it was something completely different. Fast as a reflex, lasting as a physical feeling, and stronger than real proof that someone was there. True, I didn't have any proof, but this inexplicable, absolute sense of... _knowing_ was enough to trick my mind into thinking that I wasn't simply paranoid. I'm not sure that it was a good feeling- better than actually being paranoid, though- but it did feel a lot different than the simple feeling of being watched.

All this took but a moment to consider in my brain, but in the end, my mind had decided that I had to get up and look around for myself, even if my body and soul felt differently. Nervous as I was, I hesitated to take the cloth off my eyes, when I was struck by another instantaneous feeling. "Struck" might be a bad word, though, because it was really as though a wave of calm had come over me. It was a lot like the feeling one gets after being spoken to by someone who always knows the right thing to say to calm you down, only this time, no one was speaking to me.

Sighing, I uncovered my eyes and struggled to sit upright. I appeared to be in some sort of small hut or house that looked like it was made out of stucco or carved out of solid rock. It was very plain, but very clean, with a kitchen area and the room that I was in, which was sort of a combined living room/ bedroom. Apart from the low bed that I sat on, there was very little furniture: a few seats, a little table, and a few chests for storage.

It was Ben Kenobi's hut. I knew it was. And the man sitting on a chair opposite me was most certainly not Alec Guiness.

I must have been blatantly staring again, because Obi-Wan Kenobi said nothing, but simply sipped his beverage and studied me with and equally quiet intensity. And now that I had a chance to get a good look at him, I began to realize that he simply wasn't the image of a dead actor, but a real person with a unique, authentic appearance. This Obi-Wan looked just the way I'd always though he should have looked in ANH: he looked to be in his late fifties, sixty at the oldest, with salt-and-pepper graying hair and beard that was between pale gray and dull red-brown. Whereas before, in my utter shock, I had mistaken him for the late Sir Alec Guiness, it was now hard to decide if he looked more like a younger Alec Guiness or an older Ewan McGregor. I guess when you get down to it, the reason I couldn't decide was because he was really neither; he was _the_ Obi-Wan, general and Jedi Master, this was Ben Kenobi in the Flesh!

At last he spoke. "I can see that you're still a bit confused," he said gently. It was funny to hear him speak; his voice sounded incredibly familiar, but it wasn't exactly the voice of either actor who had played him. I nodded, but was still speechless, so he continued.

"Your are not Luke Skywalker, are you?"


	4. Torture

**Chapter Four: ****Torture**

_**Stephanie**_

I sat there for awhile after the Stormtrooper and the man with the tray had left, not daring to touch the food that had been brought for me. I closed my eyes, trying to process what had just occurred... trying to forget the way the man had leered at me with that sickening smirk.

_Not as sickening as what's probably in store for me,_ I thought. Only now, looking back, can I truly understand just how naive I must have been. Of course I knew that I was going to be interrogated, even considering my bizarre situation I had been able to figure that much out. At the time, I thought that few things could come close to that horrible feeling of being alone in that cold, tiny cell, my imagination running wild with guesses as to what that interrogation droid might do. But looking back now, with the horrific, unwanted memories of my torture engrained in my brain, I can't help but be amazed at how calm I had been beforehand, not knowing what lay in store. It's almost laughable, really.

But at the time, the word "calm" did not exactly seem to apply to me, considering the sate of growing confusion, fear, and anxiety I was in. Taking a deep, shaky breath, I reached- with arms that felt as heavy as lead- out to pick up the tray that had been left for me. Back in my own world, I had eaten dinner only two hours before, but here on the Death Star that seemed like an eternity ago, and I was suddenly aware that I was ravenously hungry. I guess it was also my frayed nerves; food was the only comfort I had at the time, and I thought eating might help to calm me down.

Warily, I inspected to meager rations: a small container of water, and two gray, perfectly square slices of baked something that might have been hardtack or stale dog biscuits. I settled the tray on my lap and took an experimental bite of one of the biscuits. My first thought was gratitude that I had not broken my teeth on the rock-hard prison food, but I chewed it slowly, cautiously, trying to taste beyond the overwhelming blandness for something bitterer, maybe some kind of drug. After all, this was Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin I was dealing with here, and despite my current state of mind, I still had enough sense to not put it past those men to have ordered something extra put into Princess Leia's rations. I had no idea exactly what I was tasting for, but I theorized that both the food and water could have been spiked with some sort of truth serum, or a narcotic to weaken me and make me less likely to resist torture. After tasting nothing discernable, I forced myself to swallow and took a sip of the water. It also tasted fine.

Dubiously reassured, I continued eating, knowing that there was little else I could do. Once the biscuit-things were gone, all that remained was for me to sit and wait to be interrogated by a Sith Lord. I tried to shrug it off as if it were no big deal. _You'll get through this,_ I told myself, _Sure, it'll probably be the most horrific and painful experience of your entire life, but hey, the REAL Leia survived it, right?_ But as soon as I would try to relax my stomach would clench at the fear of my unknown fate and I would be a wreck all over again.

Over the long stretch of innumerable hours, fresh waves of panic broke over me at random times. Despite this, however, I had plenty of time alone to think. I thought a lot about Mark, though I tried not to worry myself with wondering how I- or we, rather- had ended up here. That issue was irrelevant. What I did wander was where _he _was, and if he was safe. It didn't take me long to theorize that if I had ended up as a sort of "replacement" for Leia on the Death Star, then it wasn't such a stretch to believe that he had ended up as Luke Skywalker on Tatooine. I lay there for hours on my low metal cot, worrying about my brother and praying that if all went according to the plot, he would rescue me before it was too late. But for the most part, I spent my time alone preparing myself mentally for impending torture.

It is foolish to think that I actually believed that I could prepare myself for torture. Being mentally prepared to face the kind of torture I had to is impossible to do, as I now know. I had no was of knowing at the time what I was about to experience, nor how scarring it would be. Even today I have trouble talking about it. All I knew then was that no matter what Darth Vader did to me, no matter what pain was inflicted upon me, I had to stick to three goals: stay alive, stay sane, and protect the Rebellion at _all _costs.

Oh, if only it had seemed so simple when the door finally opened again. I think my heart must have literally stopped when I saw _the_ Darth Vader enter my cell, all my courage and steely determination flying out the window as I came face-to-face with the inhuman gaze of the galaxy's most infamous villain. He exhaled; that artificial breathing, which had left me with chills while watching the last few scenes of _Revenge of the Sith_, now seemed to leech the warmth out of the air entirely.

"And now, your Highness, we will discuss the location of your hidden Rebel base," he said. As he spoke, the interrogation droid came into view, a hovering black orb equipped with a single long, menacing needle. I gulped nervously just as the door slammed shut again.

But the scene did not end there.

As the sinister little droid hovered closer, I panicked and pushed myself far into the corner away from it. One of the troopers that had followed Vader into the room seized me roughly by the arm. Emboldened, I fought him off fairly easily, twisting his arm away and breaking his grip with a strategic wrist hit; he seemed stunned by my swift moves. But before I could get away from him properly, the droid zoomed forward in a lightning-fast move and speared my right arm with the needle.

Then several things seemed to happen at once: I gasped, stumbling back onto the bench as a flash of burning cold seared down my arm and shot through my veins. At the same time-though I wouldn't fully realize it until much later-I instinctively lashed out at the droid. I swore that I had missed it by inches, though somehow the dread never seemed to register in my mind; in fact, I was never really sure whether I had hit it or not. All I knew was that _something_ beyond myself (but not entirely beyond my control) had caused my hand to move, propelled by a sudden wave of energy that seemed to come from nowhere but my own awareness, extending from my heart and mind, down through my arm, and out past my fingertips. But all of this happened so fast that I was barely conscious of it; in the next instant, I felt hands pushing me down, struggling to fight them off as I heard the strangely distant sound of a metallic clatter, followed by an angry buzz. I had a moment of wonder and triumph before I noticed Darth Vader's outstretched hand, calling the droid back to him with the Force. Had he done that himself, perhaps to taunt me? Or perhaps it was really nothing at all, and the Dark Lord hadn't noticed a thing.

It was at this point that I stopped fighting. The droid had barely pierced my sleeve with the needle, but the little poison in my system was already taking its toll on my physical and mental strength. My muscles tensed as the men held me down, then nearly spasmed as the needle was forced slowly, cruelly, back into my arm again. I sucked in my breath; I was fully aware of the thin metal spear in my flesh, felt it send liquid fire through my veins, felt the wave of painful, icy cold slowly engulf my body as the drug concoction burned me from the inside out.

"Now, where are the Rebels that you sent those plans to?"

Vader's words boomed in my head, seeming to be amplified in my mind, painfully loud and more frightful than ever. I was dimly aware of the droid hovering over me as he spoke, then shrieked as long, thin arms descended on my head, arms, and throat, ready to do God knows what to me. But I couldn't move away from them. I was seemingly paralyzed, trapped within the confines of my panicked and swimming mind. My panic seemed to spiral out of control then, though I didn't know and didn't want to know the exact cause.

"N-no... NO!" Was all I managed to get out. Without any warning, a jolt of electricity bored into my skull, then snapped to connect to the other points of shocking energy coming from the droid's arms. I screamed in agony, seeing sparks as the electricity sizzled across my icy flesh.

The attack finally ceased, but my vision was hazy as I saw Vader approach me to speak again. "This is not a game, princess," he said, "Where is your Rebel base?"

"I won't tell," I managed to whisper, "I'd rather die than betray them." A new wave of fear washed over me then, and I began to realize how true my own words might be. Regardless of my true identity, I did not want to betray the Rebel Alliance.

_But was I willing to die for them?_

With a sudden clarity, I knew that there was at least one person in the world that I _would_ die for. Ironically, though, what I needed to do most for him at the time was _live._

_I'm so sorry, Mark,_ I thought,_ I hope you're safe._

Vader spoke again, but I put all of my willpower into blocking out his words, my consciousness focused solely on remaining silent. And then I was once more engulfed in ice and flames.

It would be a long time before the pain would end.


	5. The Plot Moves Forward

**Chapter Five: ****The Plot Moves Forward**

_**Mark**_

"You are not Luke Skywalker, are you?"

My jaw hung open stupidly. _Oh shit,_ I thought, _He knows!_

Somehow I managed to stammer, "No... I'm not." Obi-Wan looked at me; was that a smile on his face? "Believe me, I'm not trying to be him, or anything, I mean, I just... well, I don't exactly know what's going on right now, and I know this is gonna sound strange, but... I know who you are," I rambled on, not knowing what to say to the Jedi Master I had idolized for as long as I could remember. What could he possibly think of me? Did he know who I was? Did he think I had done something with the real Luke? _Was_ there even a real Luke? He seemed so perfectly calm and at ease that it was impossible to even guess at what he was thinking.

"Don't worry, son, I'm sure that there's an explanation for all of this," he said, "It wouldn't surprise me that you are confused. I was too, when I found you out there. A disturbance in the Force is what brought me to you; I thought you must be Luke, you do look exactly like him. But I knew soon enough that you could not be him; I could feel it. Come," he motioned to the seat next to his, "let's here you're story."

I hesitated, then jumped up as a sudden realization hit me. "Wait, you said I looked like... oh my God, did I change? Wha-what color is my hair?"

"It's brown," he said uncertainly. I looked around the room, but there didn't seem to be a mirror or reflective surface of any kind. The thought that I might have somehow ended up in Luke Skywalker's body freaked me out to no end. I held my hands in front of me, examining them, making sure that they were mine. Then I noticed my costume, which, although it was pretty authentic, I could tell was still just that, a costume. And my lightsaber replica still hung on my belt, too. I was certain that it had drawn Obi-Wan's attention, but he hadn't mentioned it yet. I let out a sigh of relief. I was still myself. At least I still had that measure of control.

"Sorry about that, um, Master Kenobi," I said, "It's just, I mean, I don't look anything like Luke Skywalker, and I just don't know how..."

He nodded understandingly, motioning again for me to sit, which I did. "It's alright. Now, just tell me everything you know about how you ended up here."

I took a deep breath; how could I begin? I would have to tell him all about Star Wars, no doubt. He listened patiently as I explained to him about how I came from some other universe, in which he and Luke Skywalker were merely characters of a widely-popular movie series (I was surprised to find that he knew exactly what movies were; apparently, the word "movie" was as commonly used as the term "holofilm"), of which my sister and I were fans. I showed him my costume and prop lightsaber, explaining that it was all part of a holiday tradition. I told him about the prequels and his role in them, and my knowledge of the relationship between Luke, Leia, and Darth Vader, but I neglected to tell him about the events of _The Empire Strikes Back _and _Return of the Jedi. _After all, considering the fact that I was most likely currently stuck in _A New Hope_, those events were still a long way away. But I also didn't want to have to think about him being dead during those two films. Finally I came to the Halloween party and what had happened in the attic, which was the easiest to describe but, strangely, the hardest to remember. Back on Earth, it couldn't have happened more than about an hour before...

An awkward silence settled over us after I had finished my story. Amazingly, Obi-Wan seemed to believe every word I had said, though he didn't seem to have any explanations for what had happened or why. At last, he broke the silence.

"And this movie we are in now, do you know how it ends?" he asked. I hesitated, not knowing what to say, but knowing that I couldn't lie to Master Kenobi.

"Yes, " I said quietly, "Would you like to know?" He shook his head, smiling slightly and told me no, he would not. He stood up and moved to where a gold metallic droid lay slumped in a corner, obviously deactivated. C-3PO! Next to him was R2-D2, who had been silent throughout our entire conversation, but came to life with a friendly chirp as Obi-Wan approached. I watched transfixed as the little astromech beeped and whistled something that sounded like a cheerful greeting at me and rolled himself over to the low table. Grinning, I got up to help Obi-Wan carry 3PO over to my seat and prop him up in a sitting position. With the flick of a switch, the Jedi re-activated the protocol droid, sending R2 into a beeping frenzy. The droid's eyes glowed, then he looked around, starting in surprise when he saw me.

"Master Luke! It is good to see you, sir, I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me! My goodness, where is my arm?"

"Don't worry, I'll fix it, Threepio," I said, realizing how strange it felt to say those words. Obi-Wan looked at me, eyebrows raised just slightly.

"I'll need your help; are you sure you can fix this?" I frowned, but nodded. I had heard somewhere that Luke had apparently been able to easily fix 3PO's arm because it had broken off at a joint, and from my perspective, it did in fact look fairly simple to fix, although this may have been only because of my own skills with electronics (I don't mean to brag, but just ask anyone I know; I can fix almost anything). And yet, I had never been asked to repair a protocol droid before in my life, so what did I know?

Thankfully, reattaching the arm turned out to be nearly as easy as it looked. But as I worked, a new worry began to gnaw at my insides: that of my sister. Of course, I had mentioned her name while telling my story, but I had tried to push the thought of her to the back of my mind, not wanting to consider the possibilities of what might have happened to her. I did have a theory, though: if Obi-Wan Kenobi had mistaken me for Luke Skywalker, then could Steph have been...

_No,_ I told myself firmly, _You're no allowed to think that. Who knows? Maybe she really is still safe at home._

But I knew I didn't really believe that. I had seen her disappear into the mirror even before I did with my own eyes. But I had to try to convince myself that she was safe, and not follow that thought through to conclusion. Because if I did let myself think that, then I would soon realize that it was the only realistic possibility. If it were true, then I did in fact know exactly where she was at that moment, and only guess at what she was being put through...

I shuttered and shrugged the thought away. As I was making the final adjustment on C-3PO's arm, Obi-Wan inquired, "You mentioned something about a message earlier, am I correct?"

I nodded, giving 3PO a pat on the shoulder and hoping that nothing would fall off. "Yes, why?"

"I seem to have found it."

Obi-Wan sat back down in his seat to watch as the blue hologram flickered into life. "Sir, if you'll not be needing me, I'll shut down again," 3PO said, but I was barely aware of my own response as I heard the miniature holographic princess begin to speak.

"_General Kenobi, years ago you served my father in the Clone War _*_..."_

I felt my heart plummet like a rock into my stomach. My worst fear had been confirmed.

My sister had become Princess Leia.

I buried my face in my hands, not sure what to do. All the proof I needed was right there. Oh sure, the monologue was the same, but the speaker had Stephanie's voice, Stephanie's face. An overwhelming feeling of guilt washed over me. I couldn't be mad at her now; but would I ever see her alive to apologize to her?

I was only vaguely aware of when the message finally ended. Obi-Wan must have noticed my distress, because it was only a short time before he said, "That was your sister, wasn't it?" It wasn't really a question; more likely a consolation. There was no need to answer. My reaction to the hologram spoke louder than words.

I looked up at him. "I have to save her," I told him, "But I don't know if I can. I'm not Luke Skywalker, I'm only Mark Legio. I can't do any of the things that he can, I mean, I can't use the Force..." But a little nudge at the back of my brain seemed to be telling me otherwise. After all, I _had _been feeling somehow different since I had woken up here.

He smiled grimly, then walked over to the large chest in the corner and opened it. "Not yet you can, young Mark," he said, pulling something out of the trunk, "But I think it's time that you should learn the ways of the Force, if we are to travel to Alderaan to save your sister." He walked over to me, and I couldn't help but gape at him (again) when he held out the object.

"This once belonged to Anakin Skywalker, as you no doubt know," he commented as he handed me the lightsaber, "and I had always meant to give it to Luke when he was old enough. But I think you'll find it much more useful than that toy you have hanging on your belt."

As I took the saber and ignited it, I felt the breath catch in my throat. It amazed my just how _right_ that very real lightsaber hilt felt in my hands. Deactivating it again, I looked at Obi-Wan Kenobi, not flinching as he looked me straight in the eyes. This Jedi Master had possibly saved my life. He had picked me up, unconscious, and taken me to his home. I was certain that Luke's landspeeder was parked right outside. Now he was about to help me rescue my sister from the Death Star and begin my Jedi training. I had a lot to thank him for, but at the moment, words seemed to fail me. I took a deep breath.

"Looks like we're going to Mos Eisley," I said at last.

***A/N:** Well, that's all for this chapter! Now, I'm sure most of you noticed that in the beginning quote of Princess Leia's/Steph's monologue, I put "Clone War" and not "Clone Wars". That was intentional. I don't really buy into the whole "Clone WarS" idea because there only ever seemed to be one clone war, not multiple wars. It just doesn't make sense in plural form, even though the established cannon has it as such. Don't worry, either Mark or Steph, the ever-diligent fans, will eventually point this out and then realize that in the "REAL" Star Wars universe (a.k.a. my cannon) the "Clone Wars" were only ever known simply as the "Clone WAR". I hope this clears things up and you don't bite my head off because of my personal choice. ~Leanne ;)


	6. Imperial Entanglements

_**A/N- 8/17/10: **_Phew! I just got done combing through all the chapters and fixing typos, and re-numbering them, too, because I also combined chapters 1 and 2 together to get the plot moving a little faster. So now we've got 2 long chapters with a couple really short ones in between. I also got rid of the stupid "character spotlight" things a couple chapters back, because they were dumb and a waste of time. Please see the links on my profile page for more details about the story/characters if you so choose.

If you must know, it was **BluJeanBaby526** who kind of inspired me to start going back and fixing things (and hopefully actually updating soon, lol), especially since I just recently started to beta her old fic, _**Life as a Smuggler's Sister**_, which has been on hiatus for a long time and is now being brought back to life. Go check it out after you're done here, it's super-duper cool! (I promise I will never use the term "super-duper" again if you do, so I guess that should inspire you to read it)

**Enjoy chapter 6!**

* * *

**Chapter Six:**** Imperial Entanglements**

_**Stephanie**_

I suppose that both I and the Rebel Alliance had good cause to be thanking our lucky stars that I had survived a round of Imperial-style torture without revealing the location of their hidden base. Under normal circumstances, I might have even been impressed with myself, having been able to find the inner strength to keep the powerful Sith Darth Vader from knowing the location of a Rebellion that I really shouldn't have had much of a emotional connection with. But of course, these were not normal circumstances, and, having been the one to undergo said torture, I felt that at the time, I had no lucky stars to thank.

Nevertheless, I was still alive and completely sane, for which I was grateful, despite the fact that at the back of my mind I was secretly contemplating that being dead might have been a lot more comfortable and merciful. Vader, his minions, and the interrogation droid had not been gentle. Even all this time later, this is still a very touchy subject for me, but what I can tell you is that the pain I experienced was more than physical, but mental and emotional. While the droid preformed it's hellish work of causing me bodily pain each time I repeatedly refused to answer a question, Vader apparently though it would be more effective to bore into my mind as he questioned and torture me from within.

"I know you think you are helping your rebel friends by your silence, princess," he said, each word pushed like a sharpened needle into my brain, "but each moment you refuse to speak only costs them more dearly. We will find the Rebellion and crush them whether or not you decide to tell us where they are hidden!"

_Then why don't you try to find them without me telling you?_ I wanted to retort, but with all my strength going into keeping Vader's mental probing at bay, I had little left for speaking. That, and I was also afraid that if I did speak, it would be all I needed to loose my composure completely; if I tried to say anything at all, then how was I to keep myself from screaming out in agony like I wanted to, begging for mercy as I let slip that which I had been desperately trying to keep secret? So I held my tongue, barely repressing a scream as I was once again immobilized by pain surging through my body. The pain inflicted by the droid increased to unbearable proportions, far greater than I had experienced up to that point; I felt like I was somehow not connected to my body anymore, despite the sensation of pain, and could no longer gauge my body's physical reaction to the pain itself. My muscles my have spasmed or frozen in a completely frozen state, but I no longer felt it or cared. Wave after wave of fresh agony made my concentration waver; the Sith lord pressed harder into my mind, and my resolve nearly crumbled. With one last surge of strength, I closed my eyes and, in an effort to prevent Vader from grasping onto any of my scattered thoughts, I concentrated on one thing: the memory of my father.

It was as if he had suddenly appeared with me there in the cell, standing in the corner with an intensity and sympathy that filled me with both hope and heartbreak. _Don't give up_, he said, _I'm here, Stephanie. Do you hear me? Don't you dare give up!_

And then suddenly, it was all over. Everything. The pain had stopped, and my father was no longer standing in the corner. But I could still feel him with me. Opening my eyes, I saw the droid's spindly arms retract back into the dark sphere, leaving me completely numb and weaker than I had ever felt. Vader and his troopers stood back, and the Dark Lord himself contemplated me for a long moment, his breathing the only sound in the silent cell.

"Perhaps you will be more compliant later, your highness," he said. "I will have to resort to a few slightly different tactics to break your mind. If you have any shred of fear of the consequences of your actions, I doubt you will be so defiant when I return."

And then he left. Once he had, my thoughts slowly began to return to normal, but instead of the Rebel base, my brother, or my father, a new image floated to the front of my mind; one of a blue marble of a planet, a sight that send chills down my spine.

Alderaan.

* * *

_**Mark**_

Despite the nearly-insurmountable obstacles I knew I'd have to face, I was actually feeling pretty confident about my mission to rescue my sister from the Death Star for a few minutes after having received Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber from Obi-Wan. As strange and stupid as it sounds, I felt empowered. With the Force, a Jedi Master, and two trusty droids on my side, what could possibly go wrong? (And no, I did not really think that to myself; I'd seen this movie too many times to know that yes, plenty of things do, in fact, go wrong.)

That was, of course, until we stood outside Ben Kenobi's hut, and I discovered my first obstacle: the landspeeder.

Now, I'll have you know that I am NOT a bad driver. In fact, I'm a very good driver, having passed my test on the first try, and I can manage just about any weather condition and tricky parking situation there is. I can drive stick-shift perfectly well, too, which is somehow a skill that no one else in my family possess. So considering my kick-ass driving skills, I figured that handling a speeder, which is basically just a car without wheels, would be a piece of cake. However, I had forgotten one tiny detail: Luke's landspeeder had its steering wheel on the right side, like a British car. And, seeing as I was born, raised, and learned to drive in America, I was used to it being on the left. Crap.

Unfortunately, Obi-Wan must have noticed my expression, and gave me a skeptical look. "Are you sure you can handle the speeder?" he asked. How embarrassing; I could feel my face getting red. "Because If you need me to..."

"Oh no, no, I can handle it! I mean, well... I'm a good driver..." What an idiot I must've sounded like. It was bad enough that Obi-Wan didn't think I could pilot a freaking landspeeder, but I just had to get all defensive about my driving skills, too! With my face still red with embarrassment, I climbed into the speeder (why couldn't it just have doors?) and got myself acquainted with the controls.

Okay, so the landspeeder wasn't that bad. It did take me awhile to figure out that all I needed to do to start it was press a simple button, but besides that, all I had to do was adjust myself to doing things the opposite way I normally would while driving, and before I knew it, we were skimming across the desert sand towards Mos Eisley. Obi-Wan did help, though, by suggesting that we switch piloting on and off every few hours, since it ended up taking all night and a good part of the next day to reach the outskirts of the spaceport. Before entering the city, we took a break from flying near the edge of a cliff overlooking it.

"Mos Eisley Spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious," the Jedi Master commented. As I headed back to the speeder, he held me back a moment.

"I believe it would be best, Mark, that while we are working together, I will call you 'Luke' and you should refer to me as 'Ben'. Is that understood? I don't want you to feel awkward, but I feel that it would be for the best if use of our real identities is avoided."

I nodded. "It's alright; I understand... Ben." He smiled.

"Alright then, Luke. Let's be off then."

The ride into the spaceport was uneventful (as if I'd expected any different), but the number of stormtroopers on patrol put me on edge. At last we reached a checkpoint just inside the town limits, and found ourselves surrounded by troopers as I slowed the speeder to a stop. It soon dawned on me what was about to happen as one trooper approached me, and I was hard-pressed to repress a smirk. _Time to shine, Ben_, I thought.

"How long have you had these droids?" the trooper said, referring to C-3PO and R2-D2 in the back.

"About three or four seasons," I replied, the corners of my mouth twitching as Obi-Wan added, "They're up for sale if you want them."

"Let me see your identification."

"You don't need to see his identification," the Jedi said with a subtle wave of his hand. It was really tempting to mouth those famous lines as the man next to me said them, but I figured it would break his concentration.

"We don't need to see his identification."

"These aren't the droids you're looking for." Man, was it difficult!

"These aren't the droids we're looking for."

"He can go about his business." I was itching to do just that, and fly away before I did something stupid.

"You can go about your business."

"Move along."

"Move along, move along!" the trooper said at last, motioning us forward. I eased the speeder past the gathering of troops and down the dusty street, grinning widely the whole way, until Obi-Wan motioned for me to park outside the local cantina. No sooner had I stopped than a Jawa appeared out of nowhere and began caressing the side of the landspeeder with its feely little Jawa hands.

"Ugh, Jawas, disgusting creatures," 3PO said. I couldn't blame him, either; the creepy little creature was getting on my nerves.

"Go on, shoo! Shoo!" I had to physically push the thing away to get it to stop fondling the speeder. Obi-Wan shook his head, trying to hide his bemused smile. I followed him as he started towards the cantina entrance, but not before telling 3PO and R2 to wait outside.

Once inside the cantina, Obi-Wan nodded his head to where a suited-up pilot and a very familiar-looking Wookiee stood at the bar before heading in there direction. This meant I wan left to my own devices, to do whatever I wanted-and what I wanted was to get a drink. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't a perfect, goody-goody teenager, but I was also generally a law-abiding citizen, and had never actually had a beer up until that point. But, seeing as how I was alone in a bar and there was apparently no age limit (after all, Luke was 19 in this movie, I wan only two years younger), I was more than eager to grab a bar stool and get myself a drink. My only obstacle seemed to be avoiding that grouchy Ponda Baba and his friend Dr. Whatshisface (What was his name? Ebeneizer? Evandiar? Evan? Let's just go with Evan, because I really can't remember). Unfortunately, there weren't any other available seats at the bar, and since I was thirsty and didn't want to look like a moron standing in the entrance while I waited for Obi-Wan, I took the seat next to Ponda, and ordered whatever was on tap. It tasted terrible. To make matters worse, the inevitable occurred, and Ponda Baba shoved my shoulder, growling at me.

I though for a moment about what it might be that he was saying to me. It sounded aggressive because of the growling, but what if it was something as simple as, oh, let's say, a compliment on my hair? Probably not, but I decided to risk it anyway.

"Um... thank you?" I told him, before going back to my drink. I felt a tap on my shoulder, and turned to face Dr. Evan-or-whatever-his-name-is.

"He doesn't like you," said Evan.

I had to come up with something, fast. "Oh, well that's too bad."

"I don't like you, either."

"Well, I'm starting to not like you very much, either, so why don't you just leave me alone?"

Evan started to get angry; I stood up as he grabbed the front of my shirt and glared at me. "You better watch yourself; we're wanted men! Do you know I have the death sentence on twelve systems?"

"Hey, look, buddy, I'm not looking for a fight here, but I do have to warn you, I'm trained in martial arts..."

"You'd better listen to the boy," Obi-Wan chimed in; I could see his hand on his lightsaber. "He said he didn't want a fight, now let me buy you something..."

"Aaaarrraaaggh!" Dr. Evan took a swing at me, but I moved away just in time and was able to block his punch with my hand, twisting his arm and bringing it behind his back. In the same instant, Ponda drew his blaster, but Obi-Wan deflected Ponda's shot with his saber and severed his arm. Before his friend could reach his own blaster with his free hand, I pushed his head down on the bar counter and trapped his arm there with my elbow. Around me, the silent cantina came back to life again, and with a signal from Obi-Wan, I freed Dr. Evan and left him and a whimpering Ponda Baba alone. I followed the Jedi over to a corner table, looking behind me to notice that none other than Chewbacca himself was following us.

"He's first mate on a ship that might suit us," Ben explained, though I needed no explanation.

"Han Solo, I'm captain of the _Millennium Falcon_. Chewie here tells me you're looking for passage to the Alderaan system," And it was, in fact, Han Solo himself who greeted us at the table. Strange as it sounds, I was almost giddy with nervous excitement as we sat down. Han Solo was awesome, obviously, and I felt a strange need for him to like me. If I didn't want to be on bad terms with the smuggler, I would have to play it cool.

"If it's a fast ship," Obi-Wan replied.

"Fast ship? You never heard of the Millennium Falcon?'

"Should I have?"

"It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs!"

I took the opportunity to speak up. "Oh wait, I think I might've heard about this ship before; you ever outrun any Imperial starships?"

Han ignored me, speaking only to Ben. "I've outrun Imperial starships before, and I'm talking about those big Corellian ships, too. She's fast enough for you, old man. What's the cargo?"

"Only passengers. Myself, the boy, two droids... and no questions asked."

Han smiled, laughing a bit. "What is it, some kind of local trouble?"

"You could say that," I said, trying to sound a bit dangerous. Ben glanced at me briefly, but gave the smuggler a more definite answer.

"Let's just say we'd like to avoid any Imperial entanglements."

"Well, that's the real trick, isn't it?" said Han, "And it's gonna cost you something extra. Ten thousand, all in advance."

"Ten thousand? Kinda pricy for a trip to Alderaan," I said, attempting to put on a show of pretending to bargain with him by muttering things to Obi-Wan, but he only turned back to Han with a mysterious look. Han, however, now paid attention to me.

"Oh really? Think you can do better for your money, kid? 'Cause I can tell you right now you won't find any ship around these parts faster than the Falcon." He looked at me with the same smirk on his face that I'd seen on my sister's face a thousand times.

"We can pay you two thousand now, plus fifteen when we reach Alderaan," Ben offered. Han raised his eyebrows, clearly impressed.

"Seventeen, huh? Alright, you've got yourselves a ship. We'll meet you there when you're ready. Docking Bay ninety-four."

"Ninety-four," Ben repeated. Han looked over our shoulders, his eyes narrowed.

"Looks like someone's beginning to take an interest in your handy work," he muttered, nodding towards a pair of stormtroopers conversing with the bartender, who was pointing at us. Wordlessly, Ben and I got up, and silently made our way through the crowd to the cantina's back door. I was a bit disappointed that I would never get the chance to see Han shoot first, but once we were outside, I felt a whole lot better than I had before we had gone in. We were one step closer to saving my sister. I could only hope we wouldn't be too late...

* * *

_**Stephanie**_

I lay there for what seemed like-or may have really been-hours once my tormentors had left, praying desperately to forget what had happened, but finding no relief from my dark thoughts. Though I was still weak from the torture, my left hand clutched to the front of my costume dress so tightly that my knuckles blanched white and my fingers were red. I clung to the flimsy fabric over my chest the way a small child clung to a favorite blanket for comfort, or the way a survivor of the _Titanic_ held on to a floating door to save themselves from drowning. Another food tray lay on the floor near my metal cot, but I didn't dare to touch it, suspecting that the food was laced with the same undetectable drug that my first meal probably had been.

I knew I needed to eat, but by that point I really didn't care, so convinced was I that the rations had been drugged. Instead, I used what little physical strength I had left to press the button that revealed the toilet that slid out from under the cot like a drawer, and flushed the food down. Darth Vader would probably somehow still be able to tell that I had not eaten, but at least I would have a clear mind when he came for me again. I would need all my strength of mind to do what it was I was planning on doing: I was going to give Vader a false location for the base.

You may wonder why go through the pain and trouble of attempting to convince my interrogator that I was finally broken and ready to talk, and then be able to further convince him that the false location was the real one. As I have stated before, after Vader left the first time, the first and foremost thought in my mind was that of Alderaan. Princess Leia's home planet. The one destroyed by the Death Star. A planet that bore an eerily striking resemblance to my own planet of Earth. And I knew I couldn't just let it be destroyed. For years, ever since I had first watched Star Wars as a little girl, the destruction of Alderaan had literally given me chills every time I had watched it. The first time, I had actually believed that the planet was Earth at first, and cried uncontrollably when it had blown up. Not only that, but somehow I felt that I owed it to the real Leia-if there was one-to save her planet when she could not. I in no way believed that I was better than her; I was simply a girl who by knowing what was going to happen, had the potential to prevent it. And when presented with that one chance, the chance to save billions of lives, how could I not act upon it?

As Vader and his entourage of Death Star troopers entered my cell again, my resolve wavered, but I steeled my nerves and glared defiantly into the blank lenses of the Sith lord's mask. The interrogation droid approached me again, but I lay firmly planted on the metal cot and did not try to fight. I was ready. Or so I thought.

No sooner had the syringe's drug began to take its toll on my system than the Sith plunged forcefully into my mind, eliciting agonizing mental pain without even speaking this time. I shut my eyes, but images, horrible repressed memories, still flashed before them, taunting and tormenting me for a brief second before being flung mercilessly at the back of my skull as Vader continued to rip through my thoughts in search of what he wanted to know. It was as if my mind was being raped. I still fought back against him, grasping at thought after thought, trying desperately to convince my rational brain that the Rebel base was on Dantooine, it was on Dantooine... but I couldn't reveal that to Vader, not yet.

At last he brought forth his ultimate weapon; using my own fear against me. Where the first stage of the mind probe had failed, the image he implanted in my mind would surely cause me to crack. I saw my brother, Mark, begging for mercy as a hand wielding a lightsaber slashed through his chest; and instant later, the same scene, but this time a gun to his head, firing once, twice, three times even as he lay on the ground dead and bleeding; and yet another, this time with a knife plunging down into his chest, again, again, again...

I screamed, partially on my own accord by really mostly because I could no longer hold it back. I begged for mercy like my brother, for my brother, the images seemed so real... I had to keep up my act... but I just wanted the agony to end...

"Alright! I'll talk!" I cried. Instantly the images left my mind as if they had never been there, leaving me feeling drained and even weaker than before. I tumbled off the cot and collapsed on the floor. The two troopers heaved me up by my arms, and Vader held my face in his powerful hand. Tears rolled down my face, I could not look him in the eyes.

"D-Dantooine," I muttered, sounding defeated and feeling just the same. "They're on Dantooine." I stiffened as I felt Vader enter my mind again, forcing myself to concentrate on the thought of Dantooine, even going so far as to remind myself of the images of my brother being killed to keep my mind from wondering into dangerous territory. Apparently satisfied by still somewhat suspicious, the Sith released me. I slumped backwards, leaning heavily on the two troopers as they moved me back onto the cot.

"You are not as strong I though you were, princess. Expect your termination in due time," said Darth Vader, and then I was alone again. The only thing I could do now was wait.

* * *

**A/N:** And so concludes the not-exactly-new-but-slightly-improved Chapter 6, formerly known as chapter 7. But before you go, be sure to check out **BluJeanBaby526's** SW fic _**Life as a Smuggler's Sister**_ as I said before. Oh, and please don't forget to leave me some kind/constructive reviews!


	7. PLEASE READ THIS! Thanks!

IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE!

As an aside before I get to the real important stuff, I have- again- retitled this story to "Adventures in Canon Warping". It may sound a little goofy at first for a story that is more drama than humor or parody, but I've been unhappy with the old title for a while now. It sounded too melodramatic and cliche, and to call this series that I had planned a "saga" was a bit presumptuous of me. Star Wars is a saga; fanfiction is not. Also, after doing a bit of research for an original, non-fanfiction story featuring my characters in this story, I have decided to change "Legio" to "Leggio" which is actually an authentic Sicilian name (their ethnicity is supposed to be part Italian- even if it's not relevant in the fanfic universe- and I had originally made up the name Legio because it sounded like a plausible Italian name. Recently I found out that it was more authentic that I realized, after looking up some stuff about The Godfather and discovered that a real-life former mafia boss from Corleone had the last name Leggio... but that's another story). I haven't had time to fix it in this story at all, and I think I might have mentioned it maybe twice, but since this is only fanfiction it's really not all that important.

Why, hello there! What's it been, a year and a half since I updated? Yes, for any of you who may have been enjoying this story, I am really sorry for abandoning it. As much as I would like to say that after almost 2 years I am finally continuing it, I regret to say that I'm actually not sure that I will. I did have plans to continue this story as a really long series extending far into the post OT Expanded Universe, but as of right now it seems doubtful that I will be able to live up to my earlier ambitions. Besides being a busy person, my main reason for potentially abandoning this story permanently is the fact that my original ending for this part of the "saga" would have been/is actually highly unrealistic and would probably make dear Mark and Steph seem even more like a complete Gary Stu-Mary Sue pair than they already do (and I tried my best to not make them into total Sues, although Stephanie is probably a worse offender than Mark is). Recently I've been thinking about this story again and have even done a tiny bit of work on potential future sequels, and have come up with somewhat of an alternate ending to this story/novel, but it's really only half-baked still. BTW, by "ending" I mean an effective way of ending A New Hope so that the twins can get back to their own universe, which to me means destroying the Death Star and victory for the Alliance. But if I went with my original slightly-modified version of the movie ending, that would mean that "Luke"-Mark would have to pilot an X-wing and be the one to blow up the Death Star, which, considering he's never flown ANYTHING before in his life, comes from a world with completely different technology, and wouldn't understand the Aurebesh alphabet (making him unable to effectively read stuff on a computer screen/communicate with R2D2) makes the entire scenario highly improbable. Even if I tried to use the flimsy excuse that "the Force was guiding him" or something his sudden piloting and not-dying skills would still make him an obvious Gary Stu. This also kind of ties in with my plan to make the twins pilots in Rogue Squadron in the subsequent sequels, but even then why should either of them have the skills/experience required to fly a starfighter? It's highly illogical and kinda bugs me because I thought it was soooo cool at first, but what Suethor doesn't think that their original characters and their place in the canon world is cool? Getting back to what I was saying, my alternative plan to destroy the Death Star is still half-baked and also unrealistic enough so far that it would most likely fail and lead to them having to resort to the original ending anyway. I did briefly consider letting them completely fail and have everyone die at the end by Yavin IV being destroyed (thereby sending the twins back to Earth upon their "death" in the Star Wars universe), but to be honest I would really hate to write such a depressing ending and I'm sure that anyone who is somehow still interested in this story would hate me for it too.

So there you have it. If I abandon this fic and never update again, now you at least know why. I know this story isn't very popular but for those of you who have enjoyed it I am sorry. If any of you happen to be fans of Star Trek or Harry Potter, I invite you to please take a look at some of my other fiction. There is still a slim possibility that I may continue with this, but not unless people are truly interested in reading it. I did really love my Legio twins once and there is still a soft spot for this story in my heart, so if anyone genuinely wants me to continue, then maybe I will. If anyone has any suggestions, I certainly welcome them.

Goodbye for now and thank you,

Leanne the Rocket Dog (AKA LeanneWasHere)


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